CRD NZ

14/01/2024

Getting LS valvesprings to work in non LS heads.

The recipe on how to do it are in the video.

LS2, LS6 Valvespring fitment. What to get right, watch out for and math on max lift.Also, pressure testing and finding coil bind height on a stock LS6 spring...

21/12/2023

The unloved 4.1L XE/XF has some potential.

No, its not a V8. But, with a cam, intake, exhaust to complement this it can put it on par to a Barra 182.

The last factory version of the Ford 250, the XE/XF injected 4.1L. They also made the 200 (marketed as a 3.3L) but they were the economy, carby fed engines.E...

07/10/2023

Been a while...

This is a before and after of a very smokey 4age and a not so smokey 4age.

Confirmed stock ecu limit 136hp/101.7kW.

Onwards to a tunable ECU platform!

Black Car, worn generic piston rings.Yellow Car. JE Ringset, plus plenty of compression.Additional, Blacktop piston and pin on lightened Silvertop conrod.Ful...

17/04/2018

Crack test complete and all checks out as a pass. Rather surprising considering what happened to the conrod...

Next phase is removing the casting pattern with light pressure from a grinding stone and hand sanding. The exhaust cut outs have been reshaped to remove sharp edges. Removal of material has been less than a gram (no weight change on the scales I'm using)

If the rain would leave me alone, there are some final parts to complete for Certification on the Levin.

16/03/2018

Some minor changes have been made.

The reality of making experimental ports and intake manifolds is that I have no means of testing them. Unless, I buy and make a test engine which is by no means a cheap exercise.

So, I have dragged out and dusted off my plans for the continued improvement on the Levin.

The start is changing the pistons from the standard Silvertop to these Blacktop items that I have lying around. They are lighter and have a flatter surface for improved combustion.

But first, they must be cleaned and sent away to be crack tested. The unclean one was on a conrod that run a bearing to the point that the piston hit the head.

So, the plan.
Increase compression!
And see if any more airflow can be found.

Of course for this stuff to be done then I must continue my efforts in getting the Levin legal.

Time to make better use of my time instead of playing on stuff that will take years to see the light of day.

26/02/2018

Last post was about money (lack there of) and what I need to improve my services. So, its back to what I can do. I finaly found some cheap clay and began work on an experimental port for the Cleveland.

Might have to go back a while, but I posted about the 2V Cleveland and how it was stalling at about 0.45-0.5in lift.
The exercise is a destructive test in lifting the port angle.
Did it work?

Lift. OC/SP OC/RP
0.05....42.........35
0.1......78.........68.5
0.15....102.......96.5
0.2......132.......124.5
0.25....160.......161.5
0.3......185.......192.5
0.35....195.5....211
0.4......205.......223
0.45....211.......230
0.5......212.......232
0.55....218.......235
0.6......226.......237.5
0.65....---.........240.5
0.7......---.........243.5

OC/SP = Open Chamber / Standard Port

OC/RP = Open Chamber / Raised Port.

The flow numbers are in CFM (as usual).

It very obvious that by lifting the port improved flow above 0.25in. It also removed airflow dead spots! But, due to the shape, the port is a little large. I can place a Sharpie all the way to the valve guide boss without loosing any flow.
If the valve was bigger with more efficient angles it may need the area and flow more air. But I'm not there yet.
The downside to this work is a custom intake manifold is needed and it will have a very steep angle (like a tunnel ram) so the intake will have a fair amount of height.
It will also need an adapter plate made for a new rocker cover. (An extra gap to leak oil from)

The future of this port is to move it to the left. The purpose is to straighten the shot to the valve which will open the window into the port. This, in theory, will improve airflow. The beauty of clay is its quick to shape and replace so rapid development can take place.

I will see where flowbench development will take me, and will share what I find.

08/02/2018

Seeing as the updates I have been posting lately are around this time, I guess its time for a short and somewhat sad update.
The Aluminium welding is out of action until a new Argon bottle is purchased. So, only shaping with a die grinder and testing is
only possible.

Second and much larger issue is with the porting heads side of things. I need to invest more in seat cutting equipment and a valve refacer. A cheap new one of these is $375us plus freight and each seat cutter is around $100 per angle. So, for a 3 angle cut is $300. And that is for a specific size.
The valve face cutter is only good to 2in, which means all V8 heads are out.
To upgrade to a mulit-axis valve face cutter (one that can cut between 11-62 degree faces) is $6000us.
Now you know why headwork is expensive...
As the saying goes "Good work isn't cheap and cheap work isn't good"

07/01/2018

Back in the 7th of April 2016, I posted up about a Holden 5.0L intake manifold and how I was disappointed with its air flow.
Since then, a Cambrian developed and built larger nose and throttle body have been acquired and enough welding experience to piece it all together have lead to...
Well, the pictures tell some of the story.
The flow-bench has another!
The shear size and shape of the hole for the larger throttle body and neck feeding the plenum dictates (to me, at least) that there is zero restrictions for air entry.
Before questions of "shape effecting air entry" start filling the comments, a basic air flow rate guide is 146CFM per square inch. As this hole easily exceeds 6 square inches, (and lets say only 5 of those is flowing the good 146cfm) then we have 730cfm feeding the Plenum.
This still did very little to increase the runner flow.
Before in April, the test was conducted with 2 Vacuum sources. This new test was with the addition of a third. So, before the plenum's nose was removed, flow was retested.
It had increased - to 215cfm, up only 5.
After the removal, the number was up. Only by 15cfm to now 230.
So, from hp potential of 430 to 460?
Or, to still be 5cfm down on a standard head.
I really had no hope for this manifold after the last porting work and this, too, proved pointless! It flowed 232cfm!
If anything, it has shown that if a Holden 5.0L (or even worse the stroker motors out there!) has a standard intake manifold on it and it is wanting to exceed 400hp, ditch the manifold for a decent flowing item! Someone could get, say 440hp out of it. But bolt on the superior flowing item and watch the power curve climb.
The only saving grace I can see is if the head/manifold combo complement each other, increasing flow. It is a real possibility, however, only by 10-15cfm.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on this manifold. If I ever get the opportunity to dyno test these thoughts, I will publish them here.

07/12/2017

Due to the on going requirements of the Levin (and other commitments) meant the trusty Levin has been on ice for the last 4 months. In that time a new to me vehicle was purchased. An '03 BA Falcon Station Wagon.
As part of its purchase it wasn't in the best of conditions mechanically. A new thermostat, coolant and oil change helped its cause. A plug clean up and re-gap (from 1.8mm to 0.9mm) made the world of difference to cold start and throttle responce.
I also noticed with each change that the fuel economy improved. Just a little bit, but an improvement none the less.
As I have a flowbench, I took the opportunity to remove the airbox and do some flow tests and modifications to reduced intake restriction.
As my experience with this type of thing tells me that improving airflow improves power as the RPM rises, my main interest and intent was to see if I could improve its fuel economy figures.

First up, a new K&N air cleaner was brought so the testing could begin

Standard Airbox Snorkel - tested on its own - 690CFM

AIRBOX, both halfs - no filter or snorkel - 825CFM

AIRBOX LID - no filter - 1160CFM

Snorkel attached to airbox (NO FILTER) - 727CFM

With this information, some interesting findings present themselves.
Firstly, by addition of the snorkel to the airbox, there is a gain of almost 40CFM.
However, as a complete system we are loosing a little over 425CFM to the airbox lid.

Things don't get better with the addition of the Air filters.

Airbox (no snorkel) with old paper air cleaner - 585CFM

Airbox (no snorkel) with new K&N air cleaner - 645CFM

Airbox with snorkel and K&N - 585CFM

Airbox Lid Only and K&N - 1025CFM

So, a dirty paper air cleaner gives up almost HALF the potential airflow as just the lid.
Adding the K&N to the lid lost only 135CFM.

From all this, I concluded that the loss in airflow from the snorkel meant it had to go. Its airflow restriction is more costly to engine efficiency than drawing in hotter engine bay air.

The first point of focus was the removal of the square boxes cast into the airbox base.
It took close to an hour, and only increased airflow to 650CFM (+5)

From here, the entry pipe to the airbox base was removed, and the edges reshaped. With the airbox entry being slightly larger came a gain of 75 CFM.
I continued to enlarge the hole to how it is now.
A flow rate of 955CFM is a healthy gain, with some room for improvement.

So, after all this, what happened? The first point is the induction noise is much more pronounced.
As for fuel economy, I now regularly see mid to high 10L/100Km for round town driving. However, the greatest improvement has been at highway speeds. It will go under 9L/100km easily, and with a flat road plus family and holiday gear will see 6.5-7.5L on the instant readout.
On one trip, I managed 500km with half a tank. (From full to half on the guage).
Towing a very heavy trailer saw 20L/100km @ 90km/h.

Weather these figures are standard BA Falcon fuel usage or not, Im happy with them.

Note - this vehicle still retains the standard exhaust system and Ford tune. These will be looked at being replaced at a later date. I will do a review of the process and results when finished.

17/11/2017

This year has been an interesting year.
I'm most tempted to call it trying as my only success was being Class Winner the EnviroWaste Naki Drag Wars back in March.
However, this would be a negative way of viewing this year. It would fail to recognise the personal learning that has gone on for me. And, I'm happy and proud to say I will keep learning until my last breath.
To learn, One must be able to accept that the first attempt will not work out as planned. Rarely has any done so, yet, I have learnt from those too.
A year ago, I made a failed attempt to build an intake manifold. Because of the difficulties involved (both with construction and me as a person) lead me to the journey that has been this last year.
Below is that project re-started. Its still early days, but its being worked on and showing progress. Slow progress is still faster than NO progress.

These are the runners for the SuperStock intake. No cleanup as of yet.
The last picture shows the downdraft angle of the intake port. This welded to the base plate and properly shaped will hopefully help fuel distribution to all cylinders.

Oh, let me know if you would like me to post more often, or go to Video format instead of reading material.

12/10/2017

Been a while...
After seeing the results above I always get down about it an question why do I even bother.
The answer is because the rewards for getting it right. However this stuff is not easy. Challenging is the nature of the beast and failure is going to be seen more often than success.
I say thats what makes me and this page different from the rest. You get to see all the theories tested and the lessons from those tests. In the bigger picture, I learn more from failures than successes.
Leaders learn in this way.
No race team ever has won following what other race teams are doing. It only makes as good, not better.
So, to continue the learning I have ventured into making some videos. As said, still learning which includes the editing. I will post it when its ready.

As for the failed exhaust, I decided to do some more research.
What I found was that very little was understood about what a header does and how it works.
"Back pressure" are two words that instantly shuts my mind down.
Arrogant it may be, but positive pressure in a header or any exhaust system results in loss of torque and power.
Why is this so?
The greatest problem with an exhaust is that it does not have a continuous gas flow through it. The opening and closing of the exhaust valve and how high pressure escapes a cylinder creates pressure waves.
As these waves accelerate past the valve, into the port and down the primary header pipe, it creates a negative pressure "bubble" behind it.
By altering pipe size and length the negative pressure can be made to exist inside the cylinder on the start of the overlap phase of the cam.
This negative pressure draws air (and fuel for a carby fed motor) anywhere from 10 to 50 degrees BEFORE Top Dead Center. The power of this negative is so strong that it influences the entire intake charge cycle.
Simply put, the greater the negative pressure, the greater the amount of energy is transferred to the intake port (in the form of air-speed)
The catch is trying to time this negative pressure around the time of overlap.
As stated earlier, this is done with pipe length and size. The negative pressure does bring a problem. As the positive pressure pulse enters an area where atmospheric pressure is present, the pulse slows. Doing so results in loss of energy. As the bulk of the pulse moves into the area of atmospheric pressure, it opens up the pipe behind it to the negative pressure.
As gases always try and equalise, the atmosphere travels up the header to the exhaust valve.
It the valve is not shut, the event of reversion happens where exhaust gasses enter the exhaust (which doesn't burn) but also increases the pressure in the cylinder.
Reversion is the greatest killer of efficiency in any engine, and is brought about by "back pressure".
Another bonus of having negative pressure in the header at the time of the exhaust valve opening is an even greater pressure difference, resulting of greater speed of the escaping cylinder pressure. Increased speed of the positive results in a greater negative pressure behind it.
This effect becomes very easy to detect as the engine increases acceleration (due to the increased Volumetric Efficiency *Torque*) on back to back testing.
Why my system didn't work came down to using the wrong simulation mode, which gave the wrong lengths - which have an operating range starting at 7000rpm... Good for a Formula Atlantic, bad for a everyday driver.
Putting the old header system back on should restore the little 4AGE to previous power levels. As a precaution, a second muffler will be on hand for that test. Just in case.

01/08/2017

Dumb.
Another unpleasant result.
However, sifting through the data shows all is not lost.
Dyno Man Mike called it before a wheel was turned. Baffled mufflers don't make power.
Easy test is to straight pipe it and dyno again.
Must take my ear muffs for that one.